"brutal application of free market supply and demand. If having Feature X really would make my web application development significantly easier, somebody would have already written a language or environment that used it."

I see this kind of thinking applied to a multitude of subjects and it never makes any sense. The market isn't some static thing that has already rendered its final judgement - the competitive landscape is constantly changing and (in this particular example) python or ruby programmers extolling the virtues of their language to PHP programmers and convincing them that it is better is a vital component of python/ruby gaining greater market share.

This type of thinking can be used to discourage absolutely anything that is new - "if its so good, why hasn't someone already done it? If it is not already done, it must therefore suck".

In fact, it reminds of a joke about the conservatism of Canadian VCs: The entrepreneur goes to the VC and pitches his business. Being somewhat conservative, the VC asks him "Well, if your idea is great, why hasn't someone from the Valley already invested in it?"

"The lesson? Shut up and code."

The author's full of it. Though I agree with the idea that not having cool features doesn't make a language suck (though it can certainly make programming in that language less fun), the rest of his stuff is why we have so much terrible code out there.

If you just "shut up and code" you'll rarely get what you wanted as far as functionality goes.

Also highly complex code is usually a sign of a bad programmer, not a good one. Complex code is very rarely necessary to get the job done, and it leads to very high maintenance systems.

Good programmers take great pride in producing things that are simple, as is the case with most artists. The best photographs usually aren't the ones that have everything in them, but rather the ones that have exactly what the photographer needed to say what he/she wanted to say.

Not to place photography on a pedestal, IMO this applies to all of the arts. Sometimes complex is good, but usually it's just clutter.

> As I’ve programmed in various capacities and looked at hundreds of thousands of lines of code over the years, I’ve never once thought to myself how the task would have been easier if that supposed missing feature were truly there.

I think we've got a Blubber here.

> Ah, reply the nay-sayers, you only think that way because you have never known Feature X and how it could help. To which one must reply: hogwash. [...] If having Feature X really would make my web application development significantly easier, somebody would have already written a language or environment that used it.

Supporting Feature X is one thing; supporting it in a way that makes it worthwhile to use is another.

PHP's anonymous functions are a perfect example.

A "blubber"?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blub_(programming)

It's unfortunate that he thinks Perl is one of those lanagues (like PHP and COBOL) that you "shouldn't use" because it's useless, dead, broken, whatever. PHP gets a lot of hate because it's completely broken. The designers knew nothing about programming when they designed it, and that shows up every time someone writes a PHP site.

But I digress. Perl is not in the same class as PHP, it's in the same class as Ruby and Python. I think it actually one-ups those languages in a variety of places, actually. Perl has predictable scoping rules, unlike Ruby; and you can have multi-line anonymous functions, unlike Python :) I know this sounds like a broken record, but Perl's culture of libraries is something other languages really need to steal. The best part of using Perl is the code that you don't write ;)

Anyway, just thought I would clear this up. The world has a lot of hate for Perl, but it's mostly unfounded. Perl back in 1996 sucked, but programmers back in 1996 sucked. In the last few years, Perl has attracted a ton of exceptional programmers, and we have some really nice stuff now. (Moose, Ernst, Catalyst, DBIx::Class, the list goes on...)

</rant>

Why has this article gathered so many points here? It was quite inane, no?

one thing i learned at art school: having crummy paint and worn brushes doesn't mean you can't produce a great piece of work.

Unfortunately some people think that means there's no point in seeking out good brushes and paint. (or worse, that good brushes and paint are an elitist myth)

And others think that painting with their own blood adds to the work because it's so painful. (Speaking from experience, slicing open your arm is much less painful than writing PHP. As for reading the average PHP app, let's just say I'd rather die painfully.)

well put

but the point is, wouldn't having all the brushes you need and all the colors/paints you need ... aid you create more art ... or just make your life better in anyway

no body said PHP or Java are unusuable, the argument is usually that using Groovy, Perl or Ruby, just make working more interesting fun and rewarding, just like having more brushes and colors as you paint

a great painter can create amazing art with just one color i would argue that an even greater painter can create even more mindblowing art with thousands of colors

i am saying this because many people argue that the sign of a good programmer is one that can write any program using even the most primitive languages

but its still equally impressive to create a program using many differnt design patterns, and complex programming language features ... got me ... it takes a lot of brains to wrap your mind around those advanced feature and use them, and remember to use them

whats the benefit? it depends, but if it only serves boosting the programmer moral and motivate him to create more useful programs then this should be enough for more software vendors who care about hiring motivated employees

Very true, but too often people end up focusing on tools instead of what you do with them.

I suspect most people engaged in PHP/Ruby/Python/Erlang/etc use them as much as suburban dads use their Black & Decker powertools. Seems to me you either obsess about your tools or you actually use them - few do both.

Sorry.. This was supposed to be in reply to "Unfortunately some people think that means there's no point in seeking out good brushes and paint."

You need an easy way to pass around anonymous functions, or you can't easily implement Don't Repeat Yourself. Result? You repeat yourself and write poorly factored code.

Writing poorly factored code is the norm. Sturgeon's law applies here too. That doesn't mean it should be your goal, however.